Chapter 5 - Bacon and Paradise Island

"But Ma - !" Alana whined.

"Don't sass me, young lady. Your mama needs thirteen billion dollars." The girl waited until the servant placed the plates of bacon and eggs before each Cygnette at the breakfast table. "But Maaaaa! I don't waaaant to!"

The Captain rolled her eyes. "Hmmm. Someone I know got off the dropship at Crankyville this morning."

"Can't this primitive ball of mud muddle along with your first- generation ship?" Atina asked, shoveling strips of bacon into her mouth as fast as she could (Atina loved bacon, and Akana was sitting right next to her with a hungry expression on her face).

"It's not a matter of getting along, child. It's a matter of pleasing my husband, which I certainly want to do. Besides, we'll make back the money a dozen times over. And that is a very conservative estimate."

"Ma," said Arisa over a mouthful of toast. "Why would you want to please a male?"

"I don't know. I suppose it's because I love him. And, while we're on the subject, don't you like living here, Ari? Doesn't this beat the Avernus out of bunking in the barracks at the CygniCity Space Academy, listening to all those girls snoring every night for six years?"

"Alana snores, Ma."

"Do not!"

"Stop it. Answer my question, Arisa."

"Well - "

The Captain folded her arms. "Most wealthy Terran girls have a horse. You have an entire racetrack."

"Awwwww, Maaaaaaaa - "

She then turned to Akana, fifth daughter, formerly known as Mama's Little Baby. "And what about you, Aki? Every Cygnan has her own pulse rifle. But honey, your daddy bought Smith & Wesson for you!"

The child shrugged.

"And get your hands out of your sister's plate, girl! You're greasier than a Beneshandran bingkwa inspector! I'm sure there's more bacon in the kitchen."

Vindicated, Atina stuck out her tongue at little Aki, who shook her fist.

"So gross!" Alana shrieked, pointing and laughing hysterically. Unfortunately, in doing so she drew her mother's fire once again.

"And Alana. You like armaments, too, don't you? And didn't my wonderful rich Terran lifemate just buy you SAC in Omaha for your birthday?"

"Yeah, and the United Nations slapped me with a violation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty a week later."

"Yes, that silly alien ownership clause. Well, your daddy fixed that as well. Remember, my darlings. Money talks."

Akana suddenly flung a piece of buttered cinnamon toast and smacked B-ko in the forehead. It hung there for a moment, as if by magic.

"Cut it out, you little fool," her stepsister snarled, hurling it to the floor and scrubbing at herself with an embroidered napkin. "God, I hate you all so much."

"Stop it, Aki. Right now," the Captain said, shaking her index finger but barely suppressing a smirk. After all, the kid had lobbed off a pretty good shot; it was about ten feet from one end of the table to the other. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. The finer things in life cost money. Like my second-generation Athena."

"I thought you named it Magnolia."

"Put a sock in it, Akana."

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"Hikaru Teru, I have nothing to say to you."

"Please, Mother. Don't hang up. We need to talk."

"You should have thought of that before you disgraced the Daitokuji name by shacking up with that dypsomaniac space freak."

"But Mother - "

"Don't 'but Mother' me, Hikaru. Apparently, I didn't beat you enough when you were young. What do you want?"

"I need - money, Mother, for a - "

"I don't care if it's for a solution to World Hunger. If it's money you want, have that creature you married hock his twenty-three carat diamond ring."

"My Ayshalita isn't a he!"

"It's hard to tell. She stands nearly nose-to-nose with you, not to mention that horrible voice that shatters glass at ten paces. All your taste is in your mouth, Son."

"Awwww, Mother - "

"And a drunkard too. What possessed you, boy? If you wanted an alien, you could have at least picked one who doesn't get blotzo and shoot up cocktail lounges."

"Where did you hear that?"

"I read the National Enquirer. I'm not stupid, you know. Every week, it's another story about that disreputable green-haired sot. Every week, every supermarket in Japan screams out our family name in connection with her antics. Disgraceful!"

Hikaru sputtered. "It's all nonsense! They write that stuff just to sell papers! And all that is in the past!"

"Pictures don't lie, Son. I specifically remember the week where they featured her in full color right on the cover, spraying some cheap bar with pulse gun fire. Worse yet, she missed everything she targeted."

Oh no, Hikaru thought. I thought I'd bought up every single copy of that issue!

"They cut and paste those photos with Adobe Photoshop! They can make up any composite they like!" he shrieked, clutching his lavender hair with his free hand. "None of those stories are true, Mother! None of those photos are real!"

"Oh, please. The paparazzi probably spend more time at your house than they do at their own."

Hikaru now remembered why he had been so eager to leave home as a young man. "Mother. Forget all that. Please. I need to come see you."

"Stop trying to change the subject, Hikaru. Every word I've said is true, and you know it. You're nothing but a lavender-headed lunkhead, just like your father."

The billionaire moaned. Here we go with the old man, he thought.

"Yes, a lunkhead! There, I've said it. Thanks to you, the name 'Daitokuji' is now associated worldwide with that horrible drunken alien with the seventy million children."

"First of all, she's sober, Mother. She has been for quite a while now. You know that. Star Magazine devoted a whole issue to it. Mother! If it was in Star Magazine, it must be true! Right?" Hikaru was jumping up and down, frothing. He was grateful she couldn't see him. "And second of all, you can't impose Earth standards upon an alien culture! Aysha is from a matriarchy! They don't care about fathers there! Soldiers aren't even allowed to take lifemates!"

"And the only reason she found herself free to glom onto you is that her own Commander-in-Chief kicked her skinny incompetent intoxicated butt right out of the military! Deny it if you can!"

"That's not the issue, Mother. And if you want to get technical about it, she retired with a full pension. Besides," he got ready to take his shot, forgetting that the point was to wheedle money out of her, "It's refreshing to see a woman who actually loves her children! As opposed to some mothers I know!"

"Is that your pathetic attempt at a slam, Hikaru Teru?" Mitsuko said calmly, knowing that he hated his middle name with a passion. "Hoo boy. I must have been nodding when I gave birth to you. You think I've forgotten that theme you wrote in high school - the one comparing me to Grendel's mother in Beowulf?"

She heard him sputter at the other end of the line. Interesting phone call, she thought to herself. She had Sonny-boy on the ropes, all right. She might as well keep punching; she had nothing else planned for the afternoon.

Well then! Time for Round Two, I think-!

Mitsuko Daitokuji smiled and fired her next volley. "And breeding with that creature, too! What in the name of God is wrong with you?"

"The Cygnan culture values children. Aysha and I love children."

"You hate children."

"I do not!"

"Couldn't tell by the way you so-called raised your daughter."

"I did no worse a job with her than you did with us, Mommie Dearest."

"Swinging wide and free today, are we, Sonny? What are you and that gold-digger planning on doing, producing another seventy million brats?"

Hikaru bit his fist to keep from blasting her with every swear in his vast lexicon. "And what's wrong with that? Leptonians and Terrans are members of virtually the same species. And hadn't you mentioned to Shini and me that you wanted more grandchildren?"

The dowager rolled her eyes. "Yes, the operative word being 'grandchildren', not 'freaks'. Who knows what kind of genetic monstrosity that half-breed whelp of yours will turn out to be?" She chuckled at hearing her son's disbelieving gasp. "She might end up with two heads, or spitting fire, or starring in a Japanese monster movie." She gave a nasty little old-lady chuckle. That was a good one.

"That's uncalled for, Mother. Shiiko is a lovely child, perfectly normal in every way. If you'd ever bothered to lay eyes on her, you'd know that."

"Well, if she grows up to take after her mother, you'd better start saving up now for bail money and hospital bills instead of college tuition."

"MOTHER!"

"Sometimes you disappoint me. You really do. Goodbye, Hikaru." "But Mother - "

(CLICK!)

Mitsuko bung up the phone and rubbed her forehead. A twenty-three carat diamond ring, set in platinum? Talk about casting pearls before swine. What possessed the man?

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A few moments later there came another knock on A-ko's bedroom door. After a quick "come in", the birthday girl was happy to see the large form of her father filling the doorway. With all his size, he moved with a grace that belied his impressive bulk.

"PAPA!"

"I was about to ask if you enjoyed your birthday party. but that smile on your face tells me all I want to know in that regard."

"How do you know that my smile is not meant for you, Pop?"

"Oh. You're too old for that now," he said as he knelt by his child's bedside.

"Never!" protested A-ko.

He smiled indulgently and told A-ko, "Well, the way you played Spin the Bottle this afternoon tells me differently."

"Don't tell me you peeked!" A-ko shrieked at her father.

"Well I really couldn't help it. After all, they haven't made lead-based paint for well over eighty-five years," teased her father. He then added, "In fact, the only one who seemed to be better at that game than you was your cousin Zoey!"

A-ko giggled and told her father, "You can say that again! Zoey might have started slow and did her share of protesting, but once she caught on, she didn't miss a beat, and was soon off and running! In fact. I think she might have a crush on the student captain from the military academy."

Father and daughter had a good laugh together that only stopped when A-ko held up her arms and said, "Look what Mama gave me."

He held her new black bracelets in his hand while he reminisced. "I have not seen these for thirteen years - the last time was at your first birthday party."

"Mama told me she wore these while she was carrying me."

"Some nine months before, and a year afterward also," he added. "And a good thing, too!"

"Why?"A-ko asked innocently.

"Well, mothers are known to have certain hormonal changes in their lives that may make them a little irritable at times."

"So?" asked A-ko.

"So, just imagine your mother in the delivery room without those bracelets! This almost happened because the doctor wanted to remove them. I had to do some fast talking to make him change his mind. It was lucky for him that he relented - he almost found out what a Amazon mother-to-be is like while giving birth," replied her father.

Suddenly A-ko had the mental picture of her mother bouncing the doctor, the nurses, and the rest of the medical staff off and through the delivery room walls.

As she laughed out loud, her father gave her a quick hug and a kiss before tucking her into bed. As he turned off her bedroom light and closed the door he told her "Sleep well, birthday girl - sleep well and dream your dream on angel's wings."

With that, A-ko closed her eyes, turned over, and began to dream.

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It was late that very night or - if you prefer - early the next morning when A-ko woke up from a sound sleep. What had awakened her was the sound of her parents arguing.

The fact that her parents were fighting no longer upset A-ko as much as it used to when she was younger. Though rare, her parents' arguments were not unknown to her, A-ko had learned at an early age that two strong-willed and spirited people could not always agree with each other at all times.

She realized the fact that even though her parents sometimes disagreed, and even argued, didn't mean that they didn't love one another. A-ko understood and accepted this. She knew that two such people couldn't live and love one another as much as they did without the occasional outburst.

But A-ko soon realized that this argument was different than all the others she had witnessed. Her mother was always the one who lost her temper, and her father was always the peacemaker. But not this time. This time was indeed different. For the first time A-ko could remember, it was her father who was the one who seemed to have lost his temper.

At first she would not and could not believe her own ears as she heard her father's angry words. But there was something else in his voice that first confused, then frightened the young girl. The thing she heard in her father's voice was something she couldn't bring herself to believe was possible.

What A-ko heard was the sound of fear mixed in with the anger in his voice.

Silently, A-ko climbed out of her bed and made her way to the top step of the second-floor landing. Here she sat down with her head leaning against the banister, hoping against hope that her parents's argument wouldn't permit them to notice her.

"It's bad enough worrying about what every psychopath who has a grudge against us would do to our daughter, just to get at us," yelled her father. He then added in a voice that grew ever louder, "If that wasn't bad enough, we also had fifteen years - fifteen years of hiding, moving and covering our tracks - just because your mother and sisters wouldn't accept our marriage, and more important still, our love. After all the lies, after leaving the country I love so much because of your mother and sisters, you now want me to believe that all is forgiven? That the feud is over, and it's safe to come home now?"

"Nothing is over," A-ko's mother corrected him. "This is merely a three-day truce my mother has offered me. The only reason for it is so I may help our daughter for the first few days when she visits her grandmother on Paradise Island this summer."

If A-ko hadn't been leaning on the banister, she would have slid down the steps and on into the living room in shock. Suddenly, she found herself in a sea of conflicting emotions and fears. She might actually meet the grandmother she had never known - her grandmother the Queen!

Queen Hippolyta - a woman already five hundred years old the day Christ was born - a woman who ruled an island nation of women warriors - wanted to meet her.

"But she's also someone who'd exiled and hunted my mother for the past fifteen years," thought A-ko.

The redhead knew her grandmother's soul reached back over thirty thousand years, when as one of those ancient Cro-Magnon cave dwellers she was murdered by her mate. It was this same soul that was snatched from the well of souls and that the Olympian Gods used to bring life to an inanimate hunk of clay. She was the first and the greatest of those souls which made up the race of immortal Amazons. It was thus she became the queen of the Amazons - which the Gods formed from clay and gave them life. Their souls were the souls of women who had died before their time because of the cruelty - if not by the very hand - of man.

And one of those souls inhabited the body of a queen who had fought with her own daughter - just because that daughter wished to share her life with a man she had always loved, even when that special someone was the love of another.

It was with these mixed emotions running through her young mind that A-ko listened intently to her parents as they "discussed" the situation.

"Why now?" he asked.

Diana explained, "Fourteen has always been an important birthday in many cultures, and even more so for the tribe of my aunt, Antiope. When she and her followers left the island of Themyscira over two millennia ago, they had to reproduce in order to survive. When they returned back home to us, my mother thought that many of their beliefs should be honored and incorporated into our own island culture."

Calming down, A-ko's father asked, "What does Donna think about your mother's invitation?"

"I wouldn't know," she answered.

Suddenly suspicious, A-ko's father asked, "If it wasn't Donna who brought your mother's invitation, was it Zoey?"

For the first time in her life Diana couldn't bring herself to look her husband in the face as she shook her bowed head no.

"Then who?" he asked.

When she couldn't bring herself to answer, A-ko's father asked in a harsh voice, "WHO?"

Brave as ever, A-ko's mother looked her husband straight in the face and answered with one word. "Artemis."

"ARTEMIS!" screamed her husband. He leapt to his feet and shouted at his wife. "Are you out of your mind, trusting her?"

A-ko's mother Diana - now just as angry as her husband - jumped up. Standing toe-to-toe with her husband, she told him, "I don't trust her. I did once, but not now."

"I should have ripped that witch's head off when I had the chance," growled her husband.

A-ko began to shiver where she sat. As far back as her memory would take her, she'd never heard her father speak like this, let alone react the way he just had.

Almost as if her mother could read her mind, A-ko's mother hugged her father and softly told him, "Please don't talk that way, my husband and my love. It's simply not like you."

He rested his head on his wife's shoulder for comfort and security, as she held him close and rocked him as if he was a child. He had the power to shove the moon out of orbit, or - given enough time - to split the Earth itself. However, at this moment he still needed to cling to his wife for comfort as he said, "Two more inches to the left, and she would have gotten you right through the heart when she stabbed you in the back. I came so close - so close - to killing her that night on top of the Empire State Building!"

A-ko listened intently as she heard her mother say, "But you didn't. As much as you wanted to, you didn't. I was never more proud to be your wife than I was the day you didn't kill her - the day when you kept your oath never to take a life."

She led him back down on the couch. As she held his hand she told him, "I don't trust Artemis, but I do remember the way she once was before Cassie's death - before we blamed each other for her death." She then added, "But the one thing I do know is that I can trust my mother." She reached under her shirt and pulled out a small scroll and handed it to her husband.

As he looked it over she went on to explain, "It's from my mother. It's written in her hand, signed by her hand, and it bears her royal seal. I know my mother's handwriting as well I do my own. She wrote this, all right." She then added, "One more thing I know is that the word of Hippolyta can never be doubted, can never be broken, and can never be taken lightly."

"Why would your mother pick Artemis, of all people, to deliver her message?"

"It's part of her punishment for stabbing me in the back."

A-ko's father shook his head and replied, "But if Artemis had openly challenged you to a duel and managed to kill you, that would have been all right with the Queen!"

"NO! I want to believe that it would have broken her heart, but she never would have admitted it," she replied.

He shook his head and asked, "What does your mother want?"

"My mother wants to meet her granddaughter. So, she has invited her to stay a month on Paradise Island with her and with my Sisters. So that her introduction to A-ko goes smoothly, she has offered me a three-day truce between us. After it expires, I will leave our baby with her for the rest of the month."

He kept his head bowed as he slowly shook it. "I don't know. I just don't know what we should do."

A-ko's mom put her arm around her husband's broad shoulder. "If your parents were still alive, I'd like nothing better than for our daughter to know and experience the love and affection of the two people most responsible for making her father the man he is today. I'd want her to experience for herself what I felt the first time I met them. I'd want her to also feel the warmth and understanding I received from your parents when I shared with them my secret love for their married son." She then added, "I only wish our daughter could know what I felt when, after discovering my secret, they were neither angry or disgusted with a possible rival to their daughter in-law. Instead, they showed nothing but love and understanding to a total stranger."

"I still miss them," answered her husband.

"Of course you do, and so do I. It saddens me that our child will never have the chance to experience their love. But she has another grandparent, and it is her right as a granddaughter to meet her and perhaps to get to know her as well."

"What if our daughter doesn't wish to meet your mother?"

"That is her choice, and I will honor it," answered Diana.

"It's a good thing that a certain little redhead is getting a good night's sleep, so she will be rested enough to decide," her father said in a loud booming voice.

In a flash, A-ko sprinted back to her room, wondering as she ran just how long her father had known she'd been listening. Even as she dove back into bed, A-ko began to wonder what her answer should be.

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Later - in the full silence of the Magami household - in the bed of A ko's parents a worried Man of Steel lay on his side, unable to sleep.

His wife also found sleep impossible due to her husband's tossing and turning. With his back to her, she reached over and asked him,"Can't sleep?"

Not being able to find the courage to look into her face, he asked his wife and love, "When you go back home with A-ko - if you told your mother the two of you were leaving me and were willing to stay back home with the rest of your Sisters - would your mother be willing to take you back?"

She turned him over until he lay flat on his back. She then threw her arms over him and rested her head on his broad chest. "Yes, I think she would. But if I were to do that, with whom would I snuggle to keep warm on long winter nights?"

He looked into her eyes before saying, "Not much chance of getting frostbite or even catching cold on a tropical island paradise!"

"And there is not much chance of getting any of this, either," she answered back, ripping open the front of his pajamas and kissing his chest.

"Well, here goes another pair of perfectly good PJ's - "

An hour later, with his wife sound asleep with her head on his bare chest, A-ko's father stroked her hair as she slept soundly, nude and happy under the covers. But even as his wife slept peacefully, he still couldn't sleep. He was too worried and too fearful about possibly losing the two most important people in his life.